Personal Blog #18 … Federal Grant Funded to Improve Care for AD/Dementia Patients in Hospital Emergency Departments! ... 9/17/2020

Readers who visit this site may recall reading Personal Blog #13, “Dementia Patients in Hospital Emergency Departments,” posted on 1/18/20.  In that blog I wrote about how patients diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) or some other form of dementia are often treated poorly in hospital emergency departments (EDs).

Quoting from that blog, I discussed how I had read about “the American Geriatrics Society’s formation of the Geriatrics Emergency Department Collaborative (GEDC), a consortium of some of our country’s leading health systems and medical societies, to help improve emergency care for our nation’s older adults.”  The GEDC consortium submitted a grant proposal to NIA/NIH in late January of this year.  Their Geriatric Emergency care Applied Research (GEAR 2.0) grant called for establishing a Task Force to suggest ways to improve care for AD/dementia patients in hospital EDs

I was honored when the GERD consortium asked me to serve as their only non-medical Task Force member … as their “expert in patient-centered dementia care in times of emergency.”  If this grant were funded, as a former AD spouse caregiver I would be able to provide a voice for AD/dementia caregivers and their loved ones, able to describe firsthand what it is like for AD/dementia patients and caregivers in hospital EDs.  

In that same blog, I also requested readers to email me and share their own hospital emergency department experiences with their loved ones.  I said that I would like to include their comments and suggestions in my recommendations to the Task Force should the grant be funded.  Several caregivers did email me, and I am thankful for all of comments received.

Now I can update readers on this GEDC grant proposal.  Quoting from an email received earlier this week from one of the project coordinators … “The Geriatric Emergency care Applied Research network 2.0 – Advancing Dementia Care (GEAR 2.0 – ADC) is funded!!!  We received the notice of award from the National Institute on Aging today.”  Continuing to quote from that email, “During the first phase of the grant period (R61), we will establish a stakeholder engagement approach to determine research priorities for ED patients with dementia (PwD) and caregivers using a consensus process in four domains: 1. ED practices 2. ED care transitions 3. Detection, and 4. Communication and decision making.  We will also establish infrastructure and collaborations that include the GEDC, ADRCs, and GEAR 2.0 Cores: 1. Administrative; 2. Research; 3. Data/Informatics; and 4. Dissemination & Implementation.

The second phase of the grant period (R33) will solicit, review, select and fund research that will lead to future full-scale proposals addressing research gaps in emergency care for PwD and their caregivers identified during the first phase. This will create a platform from which GEAR 2.0 ADC and future investigators will generate preliminary data for large-scale funding opportunities, including multicenter project proposals. This “priming” of the research pipeline will promote further transdisciplinary studies and science and lay the groundwork for a sustainable research network infrastructure to support development of an evidence base to optimize the emergency care of persons with dementia.”

This is a very important first step in a new national effort to improve care for people with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia in hospital Emergency Departments.  Improved care for people with AD/dementia will also greatly relieve some of the stress and anxiety faced by caregivers, who often have to watch their loved ones receiving suboptimal care by many ED medical professionals who lack either the understanding and/or training to be able to communicate, diagnose and treat AD/dementia patients effectively.  Hopefully, research emerging from this grant proposal will lead to improved practices to enable more doctors to provide optimal care going forward.

I had another article about this same topic, care for those with AD/dementia in hospital EDs, published and posted on this site just a few months ago ... “When to Choose the Infant Approach,” which appeared in Emergency Physicians Monthly in June.  With increasing numbers of people being diagnosed with AD and other forms of dementia, hospital ED visits will continue to increase.  Medical personnel working in hospital Emergency Departments simply must learn how to communicate with, diagnose, and treat patients with AD/dementia more effectively.  As this Task Force’s lone AD/dementia patient advocate, I will now be able to provide a caregiver’s perspective on these important issues.  But I am again asking for your help.

If any current or former AD/dementia caregivers want to offer their recommendations, or simply want to share their hospital experiences with their loved ones, please email me at acvann@optonline.net.  Thank you.